Hello. This is a story that I only recently remembered again in a conversation with my fiance. When I remembered the story, I was overwhelmed by an uncomfortable feeling, similar to what it was like at that moment. I never fully managed to figure out what really happened then, so I decided to share that story here.
My older sister had graduated from med school at the time and my parents decided to organize a celebration for our family and friends on the occasion of that event. The celebration was held at the cottage of our family friends, where we grew up, so I was very familiar with the space. Imagine a large empty clearing, a large square surrounded by houses and fields between them. A narrow road leading to individual houses runs along the perimeter itself, and at that time it was not even fully paved. It was mostly a dirt road. From that main road, which framed the houses in a square, you could go down into the dense forest that surrounded that square. The depth of the forest was great and when you turned off the main road towards the path, you had to walk for a long time to reach the river, which was a few kilometers away.
All this was familiar to me because I grew up there and spent a good part of my childhood playing in does woods. I was afraid of the forest, but nothing more than normal and I was always careful not to stray from the path so as not to get lost.
Back to the story. My parents organized a celebration and invited a large number of people, including my cousin P. She and I were close in age and we got along well. As the number of people became tiring for us, we decided to take a walk, so we could catch up on life, just the two of us. We were both about twenty years old then and I led her down the road because I knew the path I wanted us to take: down the perimeter, alongside the forest, next to all the other houses so as not to be alone. Everything was normal until we reached one of the turns for the forest that I mentioned. Somehow we both stopped without saying a word and looked in silence at the path that stretched deep into the forest.
“Let’s go inside” I was the first to speak, after some time, even if this is something that is not typical for me. As I mentioned earlier, I was always a little afraid of the forest, especially after I got lost in it once. That was when I was still a child, but they managed to find me quickly after my screams that rang throughout the area. For this reason, I never left the road without my older friend A, who carried a stick with him and his hunting dog May. But now something was different.
“Let’s go in there. It won’t hurt us,” I said to my cousin and stepped inside.
“I don’t want to, I’m scared,” answered my cousin, but I persistently assured her that everything was fine. In the end, she still followed me because I was already 30 steps ahead of her.
“L, this is not a good idea. Let’s go back” P tried to convince me once again, but I walked forward as if in a trance.
“Everything is fine.” I repeated to her. After some time, when we were already deep into the fores, I finally stopped myself. I could not take a step more. I was paralyzed. It was as if a part of me tried to break away from whatever was pulling me inside. I was overcome with fear, my heart was pounding hard and my breath stopped. It was as if all sounds had stopped. It was daytime, but there was no sign of life: not a bird, not a rabbit, not a butterfly. Only silence and those trees that I had a feeling would stretch out their branches and trap me forever in this forest.
P was a few steps behind me “I’m going back. I can’t do this” said P and ran the same way we came. Her voice was trembling and I could feel the panic in it.
After another moment, I managed to break away and run after her. We ran without looking back, as if something was chasing us until we reached the entrance of the place from which we entered. A little further towards the cottage, we finally stopped as we finally felt safe. We did not look back out of pure fear. We tried to catch our breath and only then did we talk as we where walking back home, fast and still scared.
There was something there, we were sure of that. I wasn’t afraid at first when I went inside. In fact, it was as if something was calling me, wanted me to follow it, but my cousin’s frightened voice and presence tore me out of the trance. It had called me. I’m afraid to think what would have happened if I was alone, if there wasn’t someone to pull me back so I wouldn’t go too far. I didn’t know where I was going, I just knew when we got to that road that I had to go inside. It scares me and I can’t shake the fear that overwhelmed me and my cousin after that event.
Any thoughts on what happened here? Why did I go inside and persuade my cousin to follow me? Why did she manage to snap me out of it and why were we both so scared? There was no sound, there was no voice, there was nothing. Just the unspoken words of something that I heard and my cousin didn’t.
(I am from Croatia, so Europe, a bit more eastern, not to far from the Serbian border :) )